The history of pornography is most easily recognised as a history of regulation and repression, so perhaps it is no surprise that the proposed Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill, sees the British government well on its way [pdf] to criminalising the possession of what it calls "extreme pornography".

Call me naïve but I am surprised and aghast: in particular, that this Bill will go through with no proper public debate. Tucked away in Section 6 is the nasty piece of legislation which will define many kinds of sexual behaviour as inherently deviant and criminal. You won't need to have actually indulged in these acts yourself to be brought within the ambit of the law - possessing an image of it will do, and could get you three years in jail.

The Justice Ministry claims that "increasing public concern about extreme pornography" makes this legislation necessary. But it seems that only a few members of the public actually know about or have seen the kinds of material that will fall under the legislation. A further claim is made, that were it not for the availability of "extreme pornography", Graham Coutts would not have murdered the schoolteacher Jane Longhurst -a claim that attempts to silence any objection to the Bill as evidence of not caring about the tragic death of a young woman.

There are a number of problems with this reactionary Bill. As Rabinder Singh QC concluded, the legislation is probably incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. But of particular concern to me is the enthusiastic pushing through of this Bill with no public debate and no examination of the government's central claim that merely looking at pornography causes aberrant behaviour.

It is in the promulgation of this particular claim that the ministry has effected a sleight of hand, first in refusing to engage with any of the objections to the original consultation document offered by researchers and academics whose careers and reputations have been built on the examination of taboo media forms and their audiences. Thus the Bill has no intellectual or evidential base for its claims.

Secondly, in order to present some semblance of substantiation rather than the rhetoric of the moral crusader, a "rapid evidence assessment" was commissioned. Again, academics with expertise in the study of media were overlooked in favour of three professors known for their anti-porn views and their PhD students who have produced an entirely one-sided account focusing on some of the most discredited lab-based studies as ad hoc justification for the legislation. As a colleague puts, it "You might as well ask Esso to investigate the role of the oil industry in global warming." Academic research which might undermine the central premise that pornography causes harm was completely ignored and now, in parliamentary debates, this document is quoted and used as if it represented a comprehensive review of the current state of research.

The government has no evidential base for the legislation and has been entirely careless in its drafting of the particular provisions relating to pornography - its definitions of what constitutes porn are so loose that there are real dangers that all kinds of material currently available will fall under the watchful gaze of the police and moral entrepreneurs. Indeed, this is precisely what supporters of the provisions hope for: that in succeeding against "extreme" materials, they will be able to move forward to ensure that no one has access to sexually explicit materials, hard or soft. The particular problem with this legislation is that it sows the tendentious belief that pornography does things to people, that it is a form of "heroin for the eyes", creating monsters of its viewers. Once it is enshrined in law, there will be no need to understand tastes and pleasures or to research people's use of porn, it will simply be identified as criminal behaviour. The government has not and cannot make a compelling case for this legislation; we should be calling the ministry to account.